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Are Ireland and Leinster the biggest chokers in world rugby?

PARIS, FRANCE - SEPTEMBER 23: Jasper Wiese of South Africa confronts Andrew Porter of Ireland during the Rugby World Cup France 2023 match between South Africa and Ireland at Stade de France on September 23, 2023 in Paris, France. (Photo by Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)

Drawing parallels between another trophy-less season for Leinster and Ireland bombing out of the quarter-finals of last year’s Rugby World Cup, Springbok legends Jean de Villiers and Schalk Burger believe that mental frailty is the root cause for the failure.

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Nearly half of Ireland’s Rugby World Cup squad (16 out of 33) featured in both of Leinster big game losses this season: the 22-31 Champions Cup final defeat to Toulouse and the equally demoralising URC semi-final exit to the Bulls in Pretoria.

Leinster – or Ireland in blue, as they have been called in the past, given the majority of their players are internationals – have now gone three years without any silverware.

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And the two Rugby World Cup 2007 winners, de Villiers and Burger, say that it’s not down to a lack of talent but rather what is going on in the top two inches that is seeing both the provincial team and the national team fall short of meeting expectations.

In the latest episode of RPTV’s Boks Office, back-rower Burger likened the situation to the one Northern Ireland golfer Rory McIlroy is going through in his elusive search for a fifth Major title.

“You saw it with Rory McIlroy on the weekend, at the US Open,” he points out. “It’s not the technical fault he has got, it’s a mental hurdle he has got to get over. He missed two short puts in the last three holes and made three bogeys out of the last five and (Bryson) DeChambeau wins it, That hurts, that stings.

“There’s a trend in all these big games (with Leinster and Ireland),” he continues. “the pack of forwards crumbles and then it becomes hard to play their style, the breakdown becomes a bit more of a contest, and they don’t have that speed of play that they sort of get through their nine (Jamison) Gibson-Park and (Ross) Byrne at 10.”

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De Villiers points out that while 80% of the players are shared, the coaches are different, with Andy Farrell in charge of Ireland and Leo Cullen the man pulling the strings with Leinster.

But Burger believes that the similarities are still sufficient for the correlation to be made between provincial and international failure.

“Yes, but it’s the same type of style though, with the way they play,” he suggests.

“The Boks can really challenge them physically.”

Ireland, of course, have an opportunity to debunk such theories when they take on the reigning world champions – minus the injured Gibson-Park – in next month’s two-Test series.

The series begins in Pretoria – the scene of Leinster’s humbling at the hands of the Bulls – on July 6th, and concludes in Durban the following Saturday, July 13th.

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De Villiers says that a successful summer tour would do wonders for Ireland psychologically.

“It is concerning from their side, there’s some mental damage there, I would think,” he concedes.

“I am sorry to say this but it is like our (South African) cricket team, the more you want to get away from it, the more it just sticks to you..

“You shake it by being in that situation, performing when the big game arises, and getting over the line, and they haven’t been able to do that. Fast forward a couple of weeks, though, and they get another opportunity.”

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Comments

58 Comments
T
Turlough 174 days ago

Another thing to consider with leinster is that they always try and pursue two titles.
That said they tend to favour the champions cup. They got to the final against a great Toulouse team. Dupont played one of his great games (in defense and kicking this time). Toulouse produced a turnover masterpiece. And still it came down to a missed drop goal and arguably not perfect end of match nous by Leinster.

In the URC the result that really hurt them was the loss to Ulster in Belfast. That meant that Leinster would finish behind the Bulls in the standings and have to travel to Pretoria. That was the one fixture where they were potentially vulnerable. It still took a great game by the bulls and a masterclass by the coach. Leinster and Ireland will learn a great deal from that loss.

The one lesson I would like them to learn is to pre-analyse your weakensses as thoroughly as an opposition does and fix.

B
Ben 174 days ago

Ireland are 100% Chokers at the WC…..7 QF exits must pass as choking….
They have been the best team over the last 2 years yes, but if you keep getting dumped out of the biggest tournament at a QF it must be a choking thing……Winning 6 nations all good and well, but you playing sub par teams - so not that big of a achievement.

H
Haunui 175 days ago

France still are undisputed World Cup chokers. Being defined as a choker means almost winning but at the last hurdle continuing to snatch defeat from jaws of victory. France made the very first RWC grand final back at the inaugural tournament in 1987. They then made the final in 1999 and then 2011 yet no cigar. Ireland on their hand have never made it past the quarters. They have never made it far enough to be defined as chokers . They are just seemingly poor at knockout rugby

L
Liam 175 days ago

Yes. Used to be you could say the ABs at world cups were the worst, now it's no contest Ireland are the champs

J
John 175 days ago

Ireland no, Leinster maybe

J
John 175 days ago

They won the last two six nations titles including a grand slam in that. I’d probably look at it another way that if you had told me Ireland would have got to where they now are 10 years ago I wouldn’t have really thought it possible. It is a minority sport in an already small country so we really have rung every drop out of what we have. But expectations change when you do really well and people expect more and more regardless.

F
Flankly 175 days ago

Choking is not the same as being outplayed. Choking is about losing the plot in some unforced way. That’s not a description of either Ireland or Leinster.

What’s more like it is that opponents have watched enough tape to figure out how to stop the Ireland attack, at least well enough to push for the win. The game plan is not working so well against top teams, and it does not help that the conductor of the show has packed up his playing boots.

B
Billy 175 days ago

Both teams are more like victims of their own sucess - held to high standards because of what they’ve achieved. As newcomers to the top tier especially the national team they should expect heartbreak before they learn to manage themselves at that level. For instance both teams that reached the Finals were in now way committed to winning all their games before that …

T
Thomas 176 days ago

Not a fan of Ireland, but they’re far away from being the worst chokers in World Rugby. They’ve won too many 6N Grand Slams in the last decade, and have beaten literally every team that matters in the last World Cup Cycle.
While they are, and by a landslide, the biggest chokers at the RWC, that’s not the same thing as to say they’re the biggest chokers in World Rugby. The very idea is preposterous. They were the #1 ranked team for what a year and a half, and had what 17 game unbeaten streak? How’s that anywhere close to choking?
The same in light blue is valid for Leinster. Too much silverware, and too many podium finishes in the last decade to be considered the biggest chokers.
This seems to be a deliberately antagonizing headline.

R
Ross 176 days ago

Not a hint of trying to ryle people up with an article like this. And as others have pointed there are others that are in the same boat or more worthy of this accolade. Hoping the teams never actually read any of these articles.

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f
fl 6 minutes ago
‘The problem with this year’s Champions Cup? Too many English clubs’

"Would I'd be think"

Would I'd be think.


"Well that's one starting point for an error in your reasoning. Do you think that in regards to who should have a say in how it's setup in the future as well? Ie you would care what they think or what might be more fair for their teams (not saying your model doesn't allow them a chance)?"

Did you even read what you're replying to? I wasn't arguing for excluding south africa, I was pointing out that the idea of quantifying someone's fractional share of european rugby is entirely nonsensical. You're the one who was trying to do that.


"Yes, I was thinking about an automatic qualifier for a tier 2 side"

What proportion of european rugby are they though? Got to make sure those fractions match up! 😂


"Ultimately what I think would be better for t2 leagues would be a third comp underneath the top two tournemnts where they play a fair chunk of games, like double those two. So half a dozen euro teams along with the 2 SA and bottom bunch of premiership and top14, some Championship and div 2 sides thrown in."

I don't know if Championship sides want to be commuting to Georgia every other week.


"my thought was just to create a middle ground now which can sustain it until that time has come, were I thought yours is more likely to result in the constant change/manipulation it has been victim to"

a middle ground between the current system and a much worse system?

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f
fl 21 minutes ago
‘The problem with this year’s Champions Cup? Too many English clubs’

"Huh? You mean last in their (4 team) pools/regions? My idea was 6/5/4, 6 the max, for guarenteed spots, with a 20 team comp max, so upto 5 WCs (which you'd make/or would be theoretically impossible to go to one league (they'd likely be solely for its participants, say 'Wales', rather than URC specifically. Preferrably). I gave 3 WC ideas for a 18 team comp, so the max URC could have (with a member union or club/team, winning all of the 6N, and Champions and Challenge Cup) would be 9."


That's a lot of words to say that I was right. If (e.g.) Glasgow won the URC and Edinburgh finished 16th, but Scotland won the six nations, Edinburgh would qualify for the Champions Cup under your system.


"And the reason say another URC (for example) member would get the spot over the other team that won the Challenge Cup, would be because they were arguable better if they finished higher in the League."

They would be arguably worse if they didn't win the Challenge Cup.


"It won't diminish desire to win the Challenge Cup, because that team may still be competing for that seed, and if theyre automatic qual anyway, it still might make them treat it more seriously"

This doesn't make sense. Giving more incentives to do well in the Challenge Cup will make people take it more seriously. My system does that and yours doesn't. Under my system, teams will "compete for the seed" by winning the Challenge Cup, under yours they won't. If a team is automatically qualified anyway why on earth would that make them treat it more seriously?


"I'm promoting the idea of a scheme that never needs to be changed again"

So am I. I'm suggesting that places could be allocated according to a UEFA style points sytem, or according to a system where each league gets 1/4 of the spots, and the remaining 1/4 go to the best performing teams from the previous season in european competition.


"Yours will promote outcry as soon as England (or any other participant) fluctates. Were as it's hard to argue about a the basis of an equal share."

Currently there is an equal share, and you are arguing against it. My system would give each side the opportunity to achieve an equal share, but with more places given to sides and leagues that perform well. This wouldn't promote outcry, it would promote teams to take european competition more seriously. Teams that lose out because they did poorly the previous year wouldn't have any grounds to complain, they would be incentivised to try harder this time around.


"This new system should not be based on the assumption of last years results/performances continuing."

That's not the assumption I'm making. I don't think the teams that perform better should be given places in the competition because they will be the best performing teams next year, but because sport should be based on merit, and teams should be rewarded for performing well.


"I'm specifically promoting my idea because I think it will do exactly what you want, increase european rugyb's importance."

how?


"I won't say I've done anything compressive"

Compressive.

46 Go to comments
J
JW 25 minutes ago
‘The problem with this year’s Champions Cup? Too many English clubs’

Generally disagree with what? The possibility that they would get whitewashed, or the idea they shouldn't gain access until they're good enough?


I think the first is a fairly irrelevant view, decide on the second and then worry about the first. Personally I'd have had them in a third lvl comp with all the bottom dwellers of the leagues. I liked the idea of those league clubs resting their best players, and so being able to lift their standards in the league, though, so not against the idea that T2 sides go straight into Challenge Cup, but that will be a higher level with smaller comps and I think a bit too much for them (not having followed any of their games/performances mind you).

Because I don't think that having the possibility of a team finishing outside the quarter finals to qualify automatically will be a good idea. I'd rather have a team finishing 5th in their domestic league.

fl's idea, if I can speak for him to speed things up, was for it to be semifinalists first, Champions Cup (any that somehow didn't make a league semi), then Challenge's semi finalists (which would most certainly have been outside their league semi's you'd think), then perhaps the quarter finalists of each in the same manner. I don't think he was suggesting whoever next performed best in Europe but didn't make those knockouts (like those round of 16 losers), I doubt that would ever happen.


The problem I mainly saw with his idea (much the same as you see, that league finish is a better indicator) is that you could have one of the best candidates lose in the quarters to the eventual champions, and so miss out for someone who got an easier ride, and also finished lower in the league, perhaps in their own league, and who you beat everytime.

46 Go to comments
J
JW 43 minutes ago
‘The problem with this year’s Champions Cup? Too many English clubs’

Well I was mainly referring to my thinking about the split, which was essentially each /3 rounded up, but reliant on WCs to add buffer.


You may have been going for just a 16 team league ranking cup?


But yes, those were just ideas for how to select WCs, all very arbitrary but I think more interesting in ways than just going down a list (say like fl's) of who is next in line. Indeed in my reply to you I hinted at say the 'URC' WC spot actually being given to the Ireland pool and taken away from the Welsh pool.


It's easy to think that is excluding, and making it even harder on, a poor performing country, but this is all in context of a 18 or 20 team comp where URC (at least to those teams in the URC) got 6 places, which Wales has one side lingering around, and you'd expect should make. Imagine the spice in that 6N game with Italy, or any other of the URC members though! Everyone talks about SA joining the 6N, so not sure it will be a problem, but it would be a fairly minor one imo.


But that's a structure of the leagues were instead of thinking how to get in at the top, I started from the bottom and thought that it best those teams doing qualify for anything. Then I thought the two comps should be identical in structure. So that's were an even split comes in with creating numbers, and the 'UEFA' model you suggest using in some manner, I thought could be used for the WC's (5 in my 20 team comp) instead of those ideas of mine you pointed out.


I see Jones has waded in like his normal self when it comes to SH teams. One thing I really like about his idea is the name change to the two competitions, to Cup and Shield. Oh, and home and away matches.

46 Go to comments
f
fl 1 hour ago
‘The problem with this year’s Champions Cup? Too many English clubs’

"Yes I was the one who suggested to use a UEFA style point. And I guessed, that based on the last 5 years we should start with 6 top14, 6 URC and 4 Prem."

Yes I am aware that you suggested it, but you then went on to say that we should initially start with a balance that clearly wasn't derived from that system. I'm not a mind reader, so how was I to work out that you'd arrived at that balance by dint of completely having failed to remember the history of the competition.


"Again, I was the one suggesting that, but you didn't like the outcome of that."

I have no issues with the outcome of that, I had an issue with a completely random allocation of teams that you plucked out of thin air.

Interestingly its you who now seem to be renouncing the UEFA style points system, because you don't like the outcome of reducing URC representation.


"4 teams for Top14, URC and Prem, 3 teams for other leagues and the last winner, what do you think?"

What about 4 each + 4 to the best performing teams in last years competition not to have otherwise qualified? Or what about a UEFA style system where places are allocated to leagues on the basis of their performance in previous years' competitions?

There's no point including Black Lion if they're just going to get whitewashed every year, which I think would be a possibility. At most I'd support 1 team from the Rugby Europe Super Cup, or the Russian Championship being included. Maybe the best placed non-Israeli team and the Russian winners could play off every year for the spot? But honestly I think its best if they stay limited to the Challenge Cup for now.

46 Go to comments
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